Research for Children

If your child is between 3 and 17 years of age, you can play an important role in research by volunteering for a free and confidential study conducted by the McPartland Lab at the Yale School of Medicine.

We are seeking children diagnosed with either autism, intellectual disability, Angelman’s syndrome, or who are neurotypical.

Email autism@yale.edu

Call 203-737-3439 or

Fill out a brief form and we will contact you.

This project studies attention to social images in autistic children with intellectual disability (ID) and non-autistic children with ID between the ages of 6-11 years old. We are studying behavior and brain systems to better understand the different ways these children experience the social world. Participation involves one or two visits to our offices where children and families will talk to a clinician, complete questionnaires, and watch videos while their brain waves and movement are recorded. Children will receive a clinical evaluation and report as well as compensation up to $200.

The Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials (ABC-CT) is a research study to understand how we can better measure social skills in school-age autistic children. We are currently recruiting both typically developing children and children with a diagnosis of autism between the ages of 6 and 11 years old. A diagnostic and cognitive evaluation is provided to all participants at no cost and participants will be compensated $300.

To learn more about the ABC-CT study you can visit asdbiomarkers.org for additional information.

We are no longer enrolling new participants in the ABC-CT study, but please check back if interested.

This project studies how teens interact with peers in a computer game and in everyday life. Participation includes one or two visits to our lab where families will talk to a clinician, complete questionnaires, and teens will do computer activities while their brain waves are recorded with an electroencephalogram (EEG). We are currently recruiting teens between 13 and 17 years old. Participants will receive a clinical evaluation, assessment report, and compensation of $70.

The Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials (ABC-CT) is seeking families to participate in a study to improve diagnosis and treatment in autism. We are currently recruiting both neurotypical children and children with a diagnosis of autism between the ages of 3 and 5 years old. Participating families will receive a study-related evaluation describing their child’s current developmental level and compensation of $100.

This is a study for children ages 3-5 years old with global developmental delay. We are hoping to better understand the ways these young children experience the social world by looking at attention to social images. Participation involves two visits to our lab where children and families will talk to a clinician, complete questionnaires, and watch videos while we record their brain waves and movement. Children will receive a clinical evaluation and report as well as compensation of $150.

The McPartland lab is always working on new research so please check back soon to see if any additional studies become available.

This study researches brain responses to eye contact in autistic and neurotypical children. The project studies behavior and brain systems to better understand how autistic children perceive and respond to eye contact from others. Participation involves one visit to our lab where individuals will talk to a clinician, complete questionnaires, and watch videos while their brain waves are recorded with an electroencephalogram (EEG). Participants receive a clinical evaluation and report as well as compensation.

This study evaluates how brain cells develop in biologically male autistic and neurotypical children. Skin cells will be used to generate stem cells containing unique information that will allow us to study the process of brain development in the laboratory. We hope that this study will help us learn more about the brain mechanisms involved in autism in order to find better ways of supporting autistic people.

Collaborator: Dr. Flora Vaccarino

We are not currently enrolling participants in these two studies.